fast and curious

August 2013

Today we are launching Curious on the iPad. This is especially sweet for us because we originally conceived of Curious on the iPad, not the web. In fact, if you look carefully you can see the rounded-edge screen of the iPad in the web version of the Curious lesson player. Learning while you are in the garden or garage or subway seems like a natural fit for the tablet--not to mention the ability to record videos of your progress and share them with the teacher. We hope you agree the first version of the Curious iPad app is an exciting start, and we can’t wait to see how you use it.

You can read more about the iPad app in today’s press release, as well as see some growth statistics from Curious’ first three months of existence. In short, we’ve been thrilled with the number of teachers and learners coming to Curious. We’re also launching 20 “Collections” so you can more easily peruse our library of lessons that is swelling in number each day.

When you conceive and build something from scratch, which starts with a sketch on a napkin (or in our case, a scrap piece of printer paper), you never quite believe 100% that it will come to fruition. When it does, it feels like a huge relief. This is how we felt on May 1st as we watched the traffic start flowing into Curious.com, read the press coverage, and heard the first comments from teachers and students.

But it’s a different feeling altogether--more like disbelief than relief--when people start using your new product in large numbers. I’ve been lucky enough to experience this four times now (I won’t mention the several times I experienced the opposite). First FUNdaMENTAL (the programming language I wrote in college which ended up being my first company), then Homestead, then PhotoSite (a spin-off from Homestead), and now I think it’s fair to say Curious is safely out of the gate. Unlike at launch, when you are just so glad everything is working, when you start to have a volume of real people using your product(s) you feel a lot of pressure to make things better quickly. That accurately describes how we’re all feeling today at the Curious World Headquarters. We just want to keep making our products work better, with more features, on more platforms. Today it’s the iPad, but there’s a lot more in the works, and I can’t wait to tell you about that as well.

It’s hard to believe to believe that it’s already August! Before you know it, school will be back in session and the days of sipping drinks poolside will be happy memories. These precious last weeks of summer are a great time to get back in the swing of school by delving into some lessons on Curious.

If you are looking for some ideas, the Curious Crew has grown our minds through some enriching real-life experiences over the summer. Among us, we've tackled white-water rafting, trampolining, triathlons, the Lindy Hop, houseboating, kiteboarding, karaoke, rock climbing, a scavenger hunt, and eating very well.

We’re also keeping a Bucket List for further inspiration - some of the lessons we plan to follow are below.

We are interested in hearing about your plans, too. What do you hope to learn before summer is out? Tweet to let us know!